God’s Right Hand: How Jerry Falwell Made God a Republican
and Baptized the American Right

Michael Sean Winters

HarperOne Publishing

In an election cycle focused primarily
on the economy and the creation of jobs, the controversy surrounding Obama’s
contraception mandate and the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s funding of Planned
Parenthood remind us that social issues can still hold tremendous political
force. That this is the case can be largely credited to Jerry Falwell, the
fundamentalist preacher who rallied evangelical Christians to end their
self-imposed exile from political life, bringing with them the social issues
that retains so much power today.

While the mantra “Don’t judge a book by its cover” rings in
the mind of every book reviewer, but in this case the back cover blurbs offer
an indication of what’s inside. With praise from George Stephanopoulos and
Reverend Jennifer Butler, founding executive director of the left leaning Faith
in Public Life, it’s safe to assume Winters’ appraisal of Falwell isn’t exactly
glowing.

Still, in covering Falwell’s personal conversion to fundamentalist
Christianity, his founding of Thomas Road Baptist
Church and Liberty University,
and involvement in the political organization Moral Majority, Winters avoids
any ad hominem attacks, even occasionally
praises his subject. He admits that the media was not fair towards Falwell,
noting that he “was largely correct in perceiving a liberal bias, even animus,
against his organization, rooted in opposition to his political agenda. Some of
his critics would grab at whatever arguments might stoke the fires of
opposition to his organization.”

However, defenses of Falwell notwithstanding, Winters is
decidedly critical of Falwell’s main accomplishments and life’s work. Falwell,
in Winter’s estimation, was wrong to mix religion and politics, not least
because of what the author says were unintended consequences for religion. He
writes, “Instead of bringing Christ to the secularists, he brought some degree
of secularism to the church.”

Winters highlights the internal battle Falwell had with
himself about whether or not to enter politics, and concludes that Falwell’s participation
in politics ultimately harmed religion and the cause Falwell was championing:
“He did not see, as many still do not see, that by reducing religion to ethics
in order to gain access to the public square, he was participating in the
privatizing of religion and thereby aiding in the very secularization he sought
to defeat.”

For Winters, politics and religion are of two different
breeds and the social issues which Falwell focused on tainted religion:
“Whether Christianity is reduced to social justice or to conservative sexual
practices or to being kind, it is robbed of its core doctrinal claims and loses
its power to save”. In fact, Winters
claims that it was Falwell’s brand of political Christianity that led to the
rise of the “nones,” those Americans who do not associate with any religion.
Winters makes this connection multiple times in his book but never
substantiates it with any statistical evidence.

Not does he offer an acceptable alternative for conservative
Christians. Faced with what he saw as the destruction of the culture, Falwell
chose not to remain silent. And why not? Conservative Christians have just as
valid a claim to the nation as any other group, and have both the right and
responsibility as citizens to speak up or take action when they feel the
country is threatened.

Referring to him often as one who “shot from the hip”
without thinking through the consequences, Winters accuses Falwell of blindly
accepting the policies of the Reagan administration he worked so hard to get
elected. He seems bothered that Falwell not only concerned himself with social
issues such as abortion and traditional family values that had a clear
connection to Christianity, but also advocated for capitalism and strong
defense policies.

Winters assumes that Falwell had no moral basis for
supporting these policies, and “was unable to make the links between his moral
beliefs and his commitment to a more aggressive nuclear posture or aid to the
contras.”

That’s an observation that tells us more about Winters than
it does Falwell. Not blinded by the left’s moral relativism generally and willful
blindness on the particulars of communism, Falwell understood as Reagan (and
Pope John Paul II) did the evil of the Soviet system. As a religious leader, he
knew, as Catholics are currently learning under ObamaCare, that totalitarianism
leaves no room for anything between the state and the individual – least of all
religious considerations.

Winters goes further, arguing that if Falwell had thought
through his Christian faith he would have seen the contradiction of supporting
such a strong free market: “Nor did he acknowledge that the free enterprise
system, conjoined with the sins of the flesh, inevitably made those practices
more widely and indiscriminately available. One man’s delight in drugs or
pornography was another man’s profit margin” He also argues that Falwell, and
other “free market zealots” ignore “the degree to which an unrestrained market
places enormous economic pressures on families, forces women into the
workforce, disrupts local, especially rural, economies, and generally
undermines the traditional values that evangelicals celebrate.”

Here, Winters faults
Falwell for showing the same restraint he believes the reverend should have
exorcised as regards to the intersection of policy and social issues. He
doesn’t really object to Falwell’s insertion of religion into other spheres, as
long as he, Winters, agrees with the targets.

While disagreeing with Falwell’s decision to become active
with politics, Winters does give him enormous credit for the success of his
church, Thomas Road Baptist, the outreach programs that stemmed from this
church, and especially Liberty University.
Obviously impressed with Falwell’s institutions he writes in his conclusion,
“they were designed to engage the culture and change it, not to remove
Christians from it. Falwell put evangelization back into evangelism, and the
institutions he built reflect that change”.

“God’s Right Hand” neither exalts nor persecutes Jerry
Falwell. Winters offers a fair representation of his life but cannot refrain
from slipping in his own criticism colored by his liberal world view. For those
wanting to learn more about how Falwell “Baptized the American Right” it is a
good starting point, but readers should be aware that the author is nowhere
near unbiased.

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